Allowing agents to work flexibly can be good for them and good for the bottom line, provided your systems and processes are sound, writes Daniel Harding, Director – Australia Operations, MaxContact

According to the Creating Connections report, based on a survey of more than 300 businesses, most have maintained or increased budgets in all major areas of marketing and communications except physical events. This has led to more competition in fewer channels.

Conversations in Isolation is a series of podcasts from CX spotlight where Steve Nuttall, Director of Fifth Quadrant, sits down for an honest conversation with business leaders about the rapid changes happening in the world during the COVID-19 crisis... from the safety of isolation.

As companies around the world figure out how to navigate a way through the SARS-COV2 pandemic, solutions that enable employees to rapidly transition to and effectively work from home have never been more critical.

For the second year running, artificial intelligence (AI) was the hottest topic in the world of customer experience (CX) in 2019.

You don’t have to look far to find major players touting AI-driven CX as the next big thing. For example, IBM recently published a report which predicts that AI will unleash a new approach to CX strategy, design and development. IBM calls the shift a ‘seismic’ one, comparing it to the changes that were ushered in during the 1990s at the advent of the internet.

Software-as-a-Service provider of voice, video, chat, contact centre and enterprise-class API solutions 8x8 announced this month that it had received a 2019 CRN Tech Innovator Award.

8x8 was recognised for its contact centre solution which includes ACD, IVR, omnichannel, dialer, reporting, customer journey analytics, quality management, speech analytics, surveys and knowledge base, all delivered on one unified platform.

If your company is not already stepping up its security, now might be a good time to start because four out of every five (81%) of consumers say they would stop engaging with a brand online following a data breach.

This was a key finding from security company Ping Identity’s (NYSE: PING) 2019 Consumer Survey: Trust and Accountability in the Era of Breaches and Data Misuse report published this month.

Last month, professional services firm KPMG published its annual Customer Experience Excellence Report 2019, which surveyed 2503 Australian consumers for their views of the performance of 114 domestic and global brands operating Down Under.  

SYDNEY — October 28, 2019 — Ping Identity (NYSE: PING), a pioneer in Intelligent Identity, today released results from its 2019 Consumer Survey: Trust and Accountability in the Era of Breaches and Data Misuse.  The results expose how today’s environment—ripe with data misuse and large-scale security breaches — is impacting Australian consumer behaviour and relationships with service providers around the world.

Global big tech companies have dipped their toes in the water with payments and some in China are now expanding into the provision of credit, insurance, savings and other investment products, either directly or in cooperation with established financial institutions.

With the exception of Netflix, the so-called FAANG companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google) and their Chinese counterparts BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), are all exploring or offering financial services.